A Motor City Year

Just finished designing a book for the wonderful Maya Rhodes at Wayne State University Press. It's an ambitious project by renowned and astounding photographer John Sobczak, who spent a year shooting the people and places of Motown, one shot per day. I wanted to play off the calendar idea, using squares and numbers to create some interesting design-y stuff around those fabulous fotos. Plus, I got to have some fun typographically with the months on each opening chapter spread. An edifying project and a treat to work with someone the stature of Mr. Sobczak.

Beatlemania 2009

Okay, so like everyone else, I'm caught up in Beatlemania for the new millennium, as our digital age creates its version of screaming teens in flips and French twists by remastering the entire canon, as well as releasing the Fab Four on Rock Band. We're all metaphorically clutching our tear-stained cheeks as we again listen to to the falsetto "ooo's" and "yeah yeah yeah's" in pristine new digital stero and mono versions (or will be, in my case, as I eagerly await my stereo box set from Amazon), painstakingly fussed over for four years by Abbey Road studios' master engineers. One could base a marriage on the correct answer to the question, "What's your favorite Beatles album?" Mine is probably "Abbey Road," although "Revolver" and the White Album compete for the top spot depending...

Coincidentally, I had been working on a series of very stylized portraits of famous 4's, which has taken the form of musicians so far. Above is the first in the series, of the moptops from Liverpool. I've also done one of the Stones; four 70s glam rockers; and 4 Supreme Court justices (although that will have to be redone, as I included Souter before news of his retirement). I'll post others here from time to time.

Print Craft Trucks

These are photos of Print Craft's delivery trucks, featuring artwork that I did a couple of years ago. I've always really liked these images; they're taken from an archive of personal work that I've been creating for several years. I also designed the Print Craft logo you see on the trucks. This work was featured in the 2007 Minnesota AIGA Design Show. So there.

Anything on a stick

Well, since it's Minnesota State Fair time, thought I'd show this recent BND cover. It's for a book of short stories by Minnesota authors, with the truly awesome title "Fiction on a Stick." Of course, this alludes to the State Fair practice of serving basically any type of edible substance on a pointy wooden stick; that's good eatin'! The idea for the cover came from the graphics of those food booths, with their 50s type and imagery, weathered by time and the vagaries of Minnesota late summer weather.